Environmental conflict resolution (ECR), a practice area within the broader conflict resolution field, addresses contentious disputes and controversies related to the use and management of natural resources, development and growth, individual and community health, and a range of additional and related concerns.
The practice of environmental conflict resolution has grown exponentially over the past twenty to thirty years, with increasing use at the local, state and national level. Success rates in terms of agreements reached and participant satisfaction appear generally very good, although the field is not without its critics who question the appropriateness of these processes in given instances and the uncertainty of longer-term environmental and related outcomes. The need for more rigorous and comprehensive evaluation of ECR is apparent, with a growing demand for such assessment from government institutions that increasingly encourage the use of these processes, foundations that wish to effectively target limited grants dollars, practitioners hoping to improve their practices, and future participants needing to determine if ECR is an appropriate response to their dispute or problem.
Overall, despite the enormous range and number of environmental-related conflict resolution cases to date, little systemic evidence has been gathered about methodologies employed, near and long-term results, or the relationship between conflict resolution models and outcomes achieved. The purposes of ECR remain open to debate and even broad yet basic descriptive data in the field are sparse. In their recent book, The Promise and Performance of Environmental Conflict Resolution, editors Rosemary O’Leary and Lisa Bingham, emphasize the need to establish “clearer and more widely accepted frameworks for talking about goals and outcomes that should be sought and can be achieved through consensus building processes such as mediation and how to define relevant, valid measures for those outcomes.”
We agree. Though a present set of grants, the Conflict Resolution Program is supporting the development of ECR-related case information software and case data sets for evaluation research, creating models to assess longer-term economic and environmental costs and benefits associated with ECR, comparing ECR methodologies and their impacts, and developing new instruments for individual and institutional practitioners to measure near and longer term results. We have a particular interest in ensuring that advances in knowledge reach and find application in the hand of practitioners.
In 2004, we envision little new support in this area but will continue to learn from present grantees, and encourage the dissemination of knowledge among grantees and within the larger ECR field.
Highlights
The University of Michigan’s Ecosystem Management Initiative is constructing case studies of approaches used by environmental collaboratives to assess their programs, and also creating and refining user–friendly “Measuring Progress Guide” and “Resources” documents for collaboratives to use in developing their own evaluation plans and processes. The Initiative is also performing a preliminary analysis on the causes and resulting long-term changes in a set of ongoing collaborative ecosystem management efforts.
Andy Rowe, principal at GHK International, is collaborating with Bonnie Colby of the University of Arizona to undertake an analysis of the longer-term economic costs and benefits, and the environmental benefits, of environmental conflict resolution. This will result in the establishment of more accepted models to measure such costs and benefits, encourage more informed actions by ECR funders, sponsors and users, and assist practitioners seeking to improve the effectiveness of their services.
The U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution (USIECR), established by Congress in 1998, is an impartial, non-partisan entity that assists federal agencies and other entities in resolving environmental disputes through mediation and facilitation. With Hewlett Foundations support, the USIECR is reviewing the findings emerging from program evaluations and research in the field, synthesizing these findings, and integrating the information into practice through practitioner trainings and continuing education.
The Community-based Collaboratives Research Consortium, housed at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Environmental Negotiation, consists of more than 400 individuals and organizations interested in better understanding the social and environmental outcomes of collaborative approaches to environmental management. The Consortium has provided funds for research on these issues, and presently provides technical assistance (including design and assessment tools and protocols) to community groups, government agencies, researchers, and others, as well as a searchable projects database, on-line resource bibliography, and a member listserve.
In addition, in this area the Conflict Resolution program has made ECR assessment-related grants to the following organizations: 1) RESOLVE (to develop a national database of mediated environmental and natural resource disputes); 2) the Consensus Building Institute (to develop instruments to assess and evaluate public participation mechanisms available to environmental justice communities); 3) The Sonoran Institute for the Resources for Community Collaboration project (for small grants to support and better assess environmental collaboration in the rural West.); 4) the Policy Consensus Initiative (for its development of an ECR evaluation framework for use by state governments 5); Florida State University (to explore the impact of ECR institutions and practice on public choice, civic culture, and environmental management systems; and to CDR Associates (for an investigation into the link between theory and practice in the collaborative problem solving field, including ECR).